Flashcards: Obsolete occupations

A money changer is a person or organisation whose business is the exchange of coins or currency of one country, for that of another.

A scribe is a person who writes books or documents by hand in hieratics, cuneiform or other scripts and may help keep track of records for priests and government.

Hessians /ˈhɛʃən/ is the term given to the 18th century German auxiliaries contracted for military service by the British government, which found it easier to borrow money to pay for their service than to recruit its own soldiers.

A merchant is a business person who trades in commodities produced by other people in order to earn a profit.

A jester, court jester, or fool was historically an entertainer during the medieval and Renaissance eras who was a member of the household of a nobleman or a monarch employed to entertain him and his guests.

A miller usually refers to a person who operates a mill, a machine to grind a cereal crop to make flour.

Sōhei (僧兵 literally "monk warriors";, fighting monks) were Buddhist warrior monks of both medieval and feudal Japan.

A coppersmith, also known as a redsmith, is a person who makes artifacts from copper.

A peddler, in British English pedlar, also known as a canvasser, cheapjack, monger, higler or solicitor (with negative connotations since the 16th century), is a traveling vendor of goods.

Jitō (地頭) were medieval land stewards in Japan, especially in the Kamakura and Muromachi Shogunates.

A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. whitesmith).

A judicial executioner is a person who carries out a death sentence ordered by the state or other legal authority, which was known in feudal terminology as high justice.

A centurion (Latin: centurio; Greek: κεντυρίων, kentyríōn, or ἑκατόνταρχος, hekatóntarkhos) was a professional officer of the Roman army after the Marian reforms of 107 BC.

A chamberlain (Latin: camerarius) is an officer in charge of managing a household.

A lackey or lacquey, in its original definition (attested 1529, according to the Oxford English Dictionary), is a uniformed manservant.

Dragoon regiments were established in most European armies during the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

A burlak (Russian: бурла́к; IPA: [bʊrˈlak]) was a person who hauled barges and other vessels upstream from the 17th to 20th centuries in the Russian Empire.

A rhapsode (Greek: ῥαψῳδός, rhapsōidos) or, in modern usage, rhapsodist, refers to a classical Greek professional performer of epic poetry in the fifth and fourth centuries BC (and perhaps earlier).

Valet and varlet are terms for male servants who serve as personal attendants to their employer.

A chimney sweep is a worker who clears ash and soot from chimneys.

The barber surgeon is one of the most common medical practitioners of medieval Europe – generally charged with looking after soldiers during or after a battle.

The Yeomen Warders of Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress the Tower of London, and Members of the Sovereign's Body Guard of the Yeoman Guard Extraordinary, popularly known as the Beefeaters, are ceremonial guardians of the Tower of London.

Heavy infantry refers to heavily armed and armoured infantrymen trained to mount frontal assaults and/or anchor the defensive center of a battle line.

A scrivener (or scribe) was a person who could read and write or wrote letters to court and legal documents.

An almoner is a chaplain or church officer who originally was in charge of distributing money to the deserving poor.

A footman (plural -men) is a male domestic worker.

A man-at-arms was a soldier from the High Medieval to Renaissance periods who was typically well-versed in the use of arms and served as a fully armoured heavy cavalryman.

The Swabian children (German: Schwabenkinder) were peasant children from poor families in the Alps of Austria and Switzerland who went to find work on farms in Upper Swabia and the Swabian Jura.